I know you said you are fed up with Dell, but the Dell Outlet has some options at decent prices. I have purchased a few systems through the outlet and have been satisfied. Also, Vista isn't that bad once you get used to and will likely come on any system you purchase, you can always wipe it and install XP when you get the system though assuming you have the XP software.

http://www.dell.com/content/segmenter.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfo